Laying the Shelf Queen

We all have projects which we start with enthusiasm and then, for one reason or another, go cold on. Maybe we’ve done the subject matter too often, or we’re getting a bit jaded with the scale, or perhaps the kit turns out to be more of a challenge than we wanted to tackle, there are many reasons why a kit is put back in its box half-completed, and then languishes, perhaps for many years.

There must be very few modellers who completely finish one project before starting another. I can say that at this point in time, I have some 35 projects at one stage or another, and some have been lingering in hobby limbo for a long time. Grandest of these “shelf queens” would have to be the Zvezda (ex-Dragon) T-72B with ERA, which I bought on special from Squadron Mailorder in the 1990s.

Early Dragon is over-complex, with too many fiddly parts, this is a theme I have visited on a number of occasions, and while the hobby community has squared up to the Dragon challenge over the last 25 years or more, these kits can sometimes be made that extra bit more complicated for reasons that have nothing to do with the original moulds.

I remember an article in FineScale Modeler many years ago by master modeller Cookie Sewell, describing building a Dragon T-72, and it seemed to go together without undue difficulty. Perhaps it was because the moulds were newer in those days, but I think a key factor in the difficulty of building the Zvezda edition is the plastic used.

This Russian firm acquired the moulds for the Russian/Soviet subjects tooled by Dragon in its early days and rereleased them under its own branding, sometimes with a few additions, new markings and packaging, but the plastic used to mould the contents leaves a lot to be desired. This is a plastic that does not really react with superglue, and is not all that enthusiastic with liquid cements either. It’ll stick in the end but when it comes to the sort of small parts Dragon excelled at, with minimal positive location devices in the engineering, you find yourself in a situation where the baseline of “superglue and prayer,” as I call it, has decidedly fallen on deaf ears.

I started the kit in the late 90s (around 2000 at the very latest) and it progressed through various stages of completion until I encountered the issue of the tracks. They are Dragon’s link and length, but the question of how to assemble them when the brittle black plastic reacts so poorly to glue that the slightest stress causes failure, essentially reboxed the project for a long, long time. I eventually decided to transplant the vinyls from a Tamiya T-72 and replace them from a parts stockist later, and while the Tamiya track does not exactly fit the Dragon sprockets, it’s close enough to do.

I finally finished the model with Tamiya Acrylics in Russian “woodland” camouflage, using XF-81 RAF Green (2) for the dark green component, XF-59 Desert Yellow, lightened with 10% white, for the tan, and XF-69 NATO Black for the black. I faded it with a 5% solution of XF-57 Buff and did a standard fade/shade/wash/drybrush/pigments job. The spare track links were airbrushed the same mixed grey-brown as the tracks, but were vigorously scrubbed with pencil graphite powder to create a dull metal sheen.

The decals I was very unsure of, but those in Zvezda’s edition of the Dragon BTR-70, which I blogged about some years ago, had behaved well, so I tested an unnecessary decal and found it to be fine. The sheet is four sets of white stencil-style numbers, two each in two sizes, so you can compose your own three-digit operational numbers. That means applying every digit separately, but the white is fully opaque, the decals separate from the backing in less than thirty seconds in cold water, and with three applications of Micro Sol they pull down over the corrugations of the stowage bins well enough. I’ll keep the rest of the sheet, you never know when these numbers may come in handy.

The tow cables I’m not at all sure about, they look highly “iffy” for matching up with the rear hull, and there are of course no positive location devices (what a surprise.) I might see what Eurekea XXL have available for Russian armour. Maybe that’s a cop-out on the very last chore, but this grand old shelf queen has succumbed at last and it’s time to move on.

The model looks pretty good on the shelf, but an expert eye would notice it’s missing various bits. Some of its lights are absent, for instance. That is because no amount of glue will make them stick, certainly not strongly enough to survive painting and handling. The snorkel unit mounted behind the rearmost stowage bin has no positive location devices and I lost count of the number of times it simply fell off during handling. Both of the fuel drums fell off the same way.

In the end, can I say the model was worth all the effort? It’s one of the most detailed tanks I’ve ever built, and the contemporary Russian camo looks good, but it’s one of those models you daren’t breathe on in case something falls off again. It’s a challenge and I’m glad to say that although it slowed me down for about 16 years, it didn’t beat me in the end – in fact I don’t think I have ever “binned” a project. But would I do it again? A Dragon original, in a cooperative plastic, perhaps, but Zvezda I would have to think carefully about.

My next oldest shelf queen is probably a Hobbycraft F-86E to be converted to an FJ-2 Fury prototype. It would be nice to see that box disappear from my shelves as well!

Kit Review: Hobby Boss Fw 190 D-9

It’s not often you get to sample the wares of a company for the first time, and I have just finished my first Hobby Boss kit, their Fw 190 D-9 in 1:48^th scale. To say I am impressed is an understatement. Maybe their earlier kits were more simplified or less accurate, but the state of their art has now equalled the big guys from Shizuoka City, certainly in terms of engineering.

When opening the box of a new kit, one makes an unconscious survey of the contents, making a lightning-fast checklist of what’s there and what isn’t, and this one checked the boxes with ease. Attractive packaging, colour markings guide, no flash, optional parts, engraved detail (of course, that’s standard these days), clear instructions, marking options, individually bagged sprues for zero scratching, crystal clear canopy… Then details peculiar to the subject, such as the engine accessory area visible through the open gear bays of the liquid-cooled Focke-Wulfs. Parts fit is exemplary, and the sprue gates are the best I have ever seen, not just very small, denoting high moulding pressures, but offset from the plane of the part edge so that the plastic scar left from cleanup is not even on the external face of the part!

This model built willingly and cleanly. It is true that Hobby Boss have essentially copied Trimaster’s parts layout from 25 years ago in some respects, especially the sliding canopy mechanism, but it is also true that they have made it work, while Trimaster failed comprehensively. This kit has a canopy that both slides on call and fits precisely and snugly against the windscreen the rest of the time, pretty fair engineering in this scale!

I did not use the kit decals, they looked a bit dodgy with a spotty, irregular appearance in their carrier film, the only real negative I can bring to mind (that and the landing gear suspension being moulded in the fully extended position, as is so often the case, giving the model a stance perhaps a shade too high at the nose). The instrument panel is a decal (rather than raised details, another quibble) and I used this okay, but from the beginning it had been my intention to use aftermarket markings, specifically Superscale 48-1163 to build Rudel’s bird when he was Geschwaderkommodore of SG-2. I had originally planned to use an Italeri (ex-Trimaster) D-9 for this project but stalled because that kit does not feature the ground attack hardware needed for the subject – the Hobby Boss kit does.

By the time construction was done I could already tell it was going to be one of the standout models of my 48^th scale collection, easily as good as the Hasegawas and Tamiyas that predominate. All I had to do was pull off a decent paintjob and do the decals justice, and fortunately the process came together without too much drama. I had airbrush trouble along the way and spent time and gas bottle pressure on a great deal of cleaning as I mixed tiny quantities of paint and chased the demarcations and mottle effects back and forth, but at last had an acceptable coverage and the process of clearcoats, panel line accents and decals went very much as expected.

I’m more than pleased with this kit, and will be picking up some more examples. I find myself quite sold on Hobby Boss, suddenly my favourite of the newer brands, with something that bit more precise and professional, even more ambitious, than their Trumpeter progenitor. They have frequent genuinely new releases, are tackling unusual subjects that have been ignored by others, and their quality speaks for itself. I know their research has not kept pace with their technical skills, their F3H Demon kits are let down by a number of inaccuracies, as is their new F-84F, whose cockpit and wheel wells are far enough wide of the mark for after market replacements to be in the works almost before the kit hit the market.

That said, it’s probably a case of evaluating each kit on its own merits. I already have four or five more Hobby Boss kits in my stash and like the looks of what’s in the boxes. I’m looking forward to using Aztec’s decals for Amazonian Mirages on their Mirage III kit, and to putting some AW Seahawks into my FAA lineup, and finally adding the elusive Demon to my USN collection. Hobby Boss is a vigorous and ambitious company – their new 1:16^th scale Tiger tank is evidence enough of that – and we may expect even greater things in future from this technically superb company.

Old Classics In Demand

Many companies give their old properties a new release from time to time – think of Revell’s 1980s “History Makers” edition of classic kits from the 50s and 60s, and they’ve appeared more than once since. Sometimes they are kits with special appeal such as unique subjects, and Airfix recently rereleased their “Angel Interceptor” from the 1967 TV series Captain Scarlet in this way.

To say the kit had a sitting marketplace is an understatement. Airfix could barely keep it on their shelves, and availability was intermittent on a number of occasions. It’s an old classic, to be sure, released to coincide with the series, but, unlike the tie-ins Aifix had tooled for the earlier programs Fireball XL5 and Stingray, this one had an appeal that left it in the range as regular stock after the primary marketing phase of the program was over, indeed the last time I was aware of it in the Airfix catalogue was about 1982. Since then it has appeared once or twice, one time modified as a snap-tight edition, and the model still carries some features from this reworking.

It’s not a unique subject. Imai in Japan did the same plane, though the two kits are a world apart in terms of proportion and approach. It’s a typical 1960s Airfix kit with no cockpit whatever, dodgy proportions against the “real,” thing, and raised surface detailing. So why should it have been so popular with the modelling community?

Airfix turned it out in their new sharp-looking red box edition, with quality plans and painting guide, excellent decals, and of course used Roy Cross’s classic box art, so all this was in line with the reborn Airfix’s branding and expected quality. The kit itself remains old and simple but a tie-in with a program which has become a cult classic, so it would have to be the special appeal of that cult status. There are a great many modellers devoted to the worlds of the late Gerry Anderson, and they must have fallen on this kit like the proverbial “seagull on a hot chip,” as we say in Australia. An AM cockpit set was produced for it in resin, and any modeller worth his salt can change raised to engraved panel work without undue cussing. A few modifications and the kit builds a pretty satisfying representation of the craft as seen on screen.

A few days ago Airfix announced the edition was being discontinued, and that remaining stock was being sold off at a special offer price. The item went OOS literally overnight as modellers stocked up, more than one bought a carton of them, ten or more, to have against the day when the urge to build one comes along. While it’s true that a great many of these will change hands on eBay for years to come, it’s also true that the demand was so remarkable, the kit’s status was immediately changed to pending by Airfix – maybe they rethought the wisdom of axing an item which is so popular, even if its target marketplace is a comparatively narrow one.

This reflects the trend to rework old classics. Consider last year’s Round 2 edition of the MPC/Airfix Eagle Transporter from Space: 1999, in new packaging, with celebrity endorsements and improvements in the form of modern, state of the art decals. There is a great deal of traction left in old kits if the will is there to exploit them, to bring them up to date in whatever ways are economically feasible, and to celebrate their subject matter once again.

For myself, I still need two more Angels!

Breaking Your Trimaster Virginity

Trimaster! 25 years ago it was a name to strike awe into the hearts of aircraft modellers. It was a company whose product was to be approached in an attitude of genuflection, because it embodied a quality never seen before. Well – I’m not sure if that was really the case, ‘Tamigawa’ were pretty sophisticated in the late 80s, and recessed panel lines were not unknown, if still comparatively rare.

Trimaster burst upon the scene with a flock, a veritable schwarm of German WWII subjects that captured the attention of the specialist market, focussing on the Fw 190 in many of its variants, but not ignoring the Me 262 in many of its own, and even the Me 163 rocket plane. The company had a high production value, a quality which in the end may have been its downfall, as Trimaster closed its doors eventually. Its moulds have had considerably longer life, though, being issued in large volume by Dragon, and in a later incarnation boxed by Italeri.

It was one of these latter that tempted me to “break my Trimaster virginity,” with the Ta 152 H-1, one of the last and most derived variants of the Fw 190 airframe, perhaps Kurt Tank’s ‘ninth symphony,’ a fighter so advanced that it was almost unmanageable by the barely-trained pilots left by the time it was delivered. Nevertheless, it is remembered for the extraordinary technical achievement it was.

Given Trimaster’s reputation, I expected big things. I got an unusual subject with engraved detail and fair parts fit… And that was about it. I say fair fit, but in many cases it was sloppy, and betrayed poor engineering appreciation for the realities of building. An instrument panel attached by a couple of millimetres of its edge would be impossible without superglue, and is barely practical even so. Sprue gates on the thin ends of parts, such as the pitot tube, anticipate a rare dexterity on the part of the modeller to even free the parts intact from the tree, let alone clean them up. The sliding canopy was conceptually good but engineered to tolerances too coarse for it to actually work, leaving you with a canopy which neither slides nor actually fits against the windscreen. The various parts of the main gear bay lined up so poorly that major filing and sanding was required for the wing to close at all, and with so much forcing happening it is unsurprising that the upper wing halves did not snug down accurately enough to avoid “overbite” at the tips, one way or another.

Add to that Italeri’s often vague instructions and indifferent decals, and you have a recipe for a lot of work to get a decent result. I ended up leaving some parts off – two oblique braces in the gear bay, to be added from the outside after main assembly, for instance – the plans gave few clues as to how they fit. Likewise, the aft-most antenna under the fuselage had no locator hole and the plans made no mention of opening one until it was essentially too late. Okay, I could have taken a needle and drill to the centreline of a perfectly mated, flushed and painted fuselage and made a hole, but at what risk? Likewise, the two short indicators that rose through the wings to tell the pilot the gear was locked down had no locator holes either, when finally examined in close detail, and were left off for the same reason. The main gear struts were moulded with the shock absorber in the fully extended – unloaded – position, giving the aircraft a distinctly nose-high attitude, though if they had been moulded compressed the moraine antenna on the underside would have barely cleared the ground. A small brace piece in the tailwheel assembly had no attachment points, and the plans gave few hints… The exhausts were moulded to be attached from the inside, but fitted so curiously, on long mounting lugs, that they would have resided entirely inside the compartment, while in reality they should be entirely outside.

I made a series of modifications and simplifications (alright, omissions) to get the job done. The exhausts I replaced with the Quickboost parts for Tamiya’s Fw 190 D-9, which needed some modification and clever use of styrene stripstock to mount them, but looked a lot better (although the resin of the parts is so fine on the open exhaust throats that it in fact broke away in many places, almost nullifying the object of improving a defect.) I added Eduard etched harness in the cockpit, a basic improvement that is pretty much second nature these days, then did my best to wrestle the beast into submission.

This finally involved replacing many decals with generic insignia, swastikas and data from an Aeromaster sheet, using the H-1 data and individual aircraft codes from the Italeri sheet but omitting the wing walk dashed lines as it appeared the decals were silvering badly, and, as I had seen the same subject depicted minus these markings, I felt justified in leaving them out. The same with the loading chart data on the outside of the gear bay doors – the decal as supplied is too large to fit and the subject is sometimes seen without them. The red flashes marking the trim tabs were far too large for the tabs on all tail surfaces so these were painted red by hand. In the end I did not rig the main radio antenna wire either; after a long process of soft masking and spraying the three-tone scheme and DOR bands, and wrestling with panel accents in lines which were inconsistent across the airframe and thus sometimes unable to hold a wash, I just wanted it finished. The landing gear reduced me to that state I call “superglue and prayer,” and, while it worked, it was a close thing. The next day, the  model was in the display case.

I certainly hope Trimaster lifted their game as they went. Perhaps this was one of their earlier efforts, part of a learning curve. I have at least 16 other kits which trace their origins to Trimaster in one incarnation or another, and I do not look forward to a fight like this again. In contrast, Hobby Boss has virtually copied their engineering in some aspects for their D- and C-series 190s, but tightened the tolerances until it works correctly. Not quite shake and bake kits, but close, and definitely playing the big guys from Shizuoka City at their own game.

I’ll have a review of Hobby Boss’s D-9 at a later date, and it will be written in light of my experiences on this current model, as a bench mark for the changes a quarter of a century makes in the state of this particular art and science. At the end of the day, I have a Ta 152 which looks good among its brethren in the case, the paintjob is attractive, and in many cases I can justify my choices at a research level rather than one of slack modelling, and that’s a good note to close on.

What Price Detail?

First of all, an apology: this post was written months ago and it simply slipped my mind that I had not posted it! Life has been both busy and fraught and even on the brightest side I have been more concerned with building models than blogging about them. Nevertheless, this blog is alive and well and here are two posts on the same day to make up for the long silence! So, without further ado:

We usually think of detail, and detail accuracy, as being rather the holy grail of the hobby. How faithful has a manufacturer been to the original subject? Have the fine details been captured? How well? Surely a kit that captures details others have missed must be a good one, and when there are many of them, it must be the preferred starting point.

That was my perhaps naïve outlook when I started Trumpeter’s old (2000 or so) kit of the M1A1HA tank. I used Vodnik’s site to compare the major brands and how well they had captured the fine details, and in almost every instance Trumpeter was well ahead, featuring a wealth of small details that I have in the past scratchbuilt onto Tamiya M1s to “complete the picture.” Some of them are details I have never attempted, such as the sides of the lower hull with their intricate bolt detail and what appear to be laminations of plate. The Trumpeter offering featured many moulded-in items the others do not, and the lower price was an added incentive.

The fact is, the lower price should also have been a warning, because this was perhaps the least friendly armour kit I’ve built in a while. I can safely say it fought me at every step, there are elements that were never going to line up, and for all its vaunted details, there were elements which were missed or improperly represented, so if accuracy was the goal there was still building to do on top of the battle royal that was the price of the details to start with.

Many would say this it is a good thing to be challenged, and I would agree. Certainly the construction sequence was different from what I’m used to, necessitated by the skirt armour being moulded in with the upper hull. This meant that the running gear and lower hull must be completed before the upper hull is mated, and this gave rise to the interesting process of, essentially, laying on the main paint scheme before the model was finished. When the top hull was snugged down over the lower and fixed in place, I simply touched up the camouflage scheme with a few spots through the airbrush and called it good. I make that process sound simple, but there was a great deal of filing and fiddling, of cutting with a razor saw and other adjustments to get the hull to join at all.

The proof of the model is in the viewing, I guess, and it sure looks like an Abrams. All that fancy detail behind the running gear is invisible, of course, and I still had to scratch a detail or two, and only realised after I was done that I’d missed one or two others that would have been easy to add at the right time. The doors of the main sight don’t fit, the lifting lugs on the rear hull should have been replaced with wire, the bustle rack and turret racks overall were warped and were a pain to get even as straight as they are… The rack outer face is sloping inward, which was not apparent until the tact board and stowage boxes were attached. I used these same parts on another model long ago and they behaved much better that time.

The decals, while quite glossy, were very thin and reacted well to Microscale chemistry, snugging down to the surface without complaint, and as such were one of the few elements of this kit that worked as intended. The non-slip texture moulded in is also excellent, but that’s about it for the compliments. The running gear is secured with central caps which did not fit the shafts they were meant to go over, neither in length nor width. I filed the axle stubs to get them into place but nothing would ever get them to sit down that extra couple of millimetres to where they actually looked like the real thing. As a matter of fact, almost no pin was ever the right size to enter a socket anywhere on this kit, including the main sockets that joined the hull, so it was always a matter of modifying and filing. It fought me to the bitter end, with the radio masts and tow cables, to the extent that I really did not care by then whether the details I was mounting were correct or not, so long as they were finished.

Trumpeter have come a long way since this kit, which was in their “middle era” of engineering. Today their new-tool products are world class, and their Hobby Boss subsidiary is right up there with Tamegawa in terms of crispness of moulding and accuracy of assembly. It all had to start somewhere, and this M1, while dated in its approach, was far from their first product even so. I look forward to a retool at some point, or even an M1 showing up in their 1:16^th scale armour series, which would be majorly impressive.

This particular outing was an education in many ways, and I would have to say that I’m happy enough with the result. Tamiya Acrylics, Mig pigments, scratchbuilt radio masts and a steady hand on the decals, and she looks good in the line up with the others. Heck, for $7 direct from China, perhaps I really shouldn’t complain!

Building to a Theme

I’m sure I must have posted on this idea before, but sometimes you find yourself building to a theme. I found myself doing so earlier in the year, turning out a Hasegawa Bf 109 F in a North Africa scheme, then remembering that I had Gleed’s Spitfire V, also by Hasegawa, in common scale, on the shelf too and begging to be opened and finished from the mid-construction stage at which I’d left it, oh, a long time go.

No modeller worth his salt can ignore the siren song of such a notion, and before I knew it I was reassessing the older project, and imagining the two warbirds of the ’42-’43 period, contemporaries in the Mediterranean Theatre, displayed together. I doubt the pilots, Werner Shroer and Ian R. Gleed, ever met in action, but they were in-theatre in the last six months or so of the campaign before the collapse of the Axis endeavour on the continent of Africa in May 1943. It seemed just the right thing to do to build a second aircraft to compliment the first – place it in context, if you will.

The models themselves are superb, as you expect from one of the big guys from Shizuoka City, though the Messerschmitt’s tooling design calls for separate engine panels, presumably to allow for the production of change-out parts to cater to other sub-marks, and this allowed for some warpage of the forward fuselage and a lot of elbow-grease to correct the resulting inaccuracies of alignment. From the firewall back the parts matched up as perfectly as you could wish for, so it was likely simple warpage of the parts after demoulding that was to blame.

The Spitfire assembled beautifully, with only the characteristic fine mismatch on the underside at the rear of the wing subassembly to fill and sand, which seems endemic to all Spitfires the way intake seams are endemic to Phantoms, regardless of manufacturer. Other than these points, building was smooth and a pleasure, and I mixed the colours for both from Tamiya Acrylics, applied kit decals (the ones in the 109 were a special edition by Aeromaster) and used Microscale chemistry for decal set and cleaercoats. The roundels under the wings of the Spit were required to conform to various bumps and dips and took many applications of setting solution, plus attention with a blade, to lie down as well as they did, which is acceptable but not perfect. Flory (Promodeller) panel washes and MiG pigments finished the process for each, and I had my first foray into the African phase of WWII.

I like building to a theme. I have a Tamiya Jagdpangther under way, to be finished in the markings of the Ardennes offensive period/area, to compliment the King Tiger I finished six months ago, and have a Pz. IV for North Africa also underway. In a way, building to a theme allows more comprehensive justice to be done, reflecting one’s interests and the depth of research that is done, leading us on to new and fascinating projects.

Of course, themes can get out of hand… I have nine German single seat fighters underway at once, and am aiming to finish a bunch of them production line fashion, and there is something to be said for learning the requirements of certain periods and amassing the materials to do justice to them, but one’s collection shows the dearth of attention outside the theme – and begs for another theme to be addressed. What about US naval aviation? What about the British FAA? What about those vinyl sci fi figure kits? Perhaps things go in waves of interest, and that could also be a good thing. I can’t wait to get stuck into those magnificent 1:20^th scale vinyl dinosaurs… One day!

Enui?

What do we do on one of those days when superglue seems to lose its “oomph..?”

I think we must have all had them, or maybe it’s a symptom of aging, but there are days when the “passion for precision,” to borrow Academy’s old slogan, is dulled somewhat, by the simple expedient of things not going as expected, predicted or otherwise planned for,

Aftermarket decals that behave so badly you wonder why the manufacturers bother if they couldn’t make a better product? Photoetch that springs away into the carpet never to be seen again. Paint that is absolutely not the colour that the catalogue claimed it would be (well, you have to add a filter to make it the right colour, only nobody mentioned that at the sale stage). Parts which, though well moulded, are never going to line up. And so on.

Our skills are supposed to be what compensates for the shortcomings of the manufacturers, this is an engineering artform, after all, and that’s a tub I’ve thumped often enough. But sometimes it would be nice if the parts really, genuinely fit, the colours were truly accurate without any pushing and pulling, and the decals behaved well. To be fair, I just used some Aeromaster decals and they were a dream, they separated cleanly and readily, responded well to manipulation, even survived secondary wetting and application perfectly, and the carrier film is absolutely clear, with no hint of silvering. If I have a gripe it’s that they didn’t snug into recesses tightly enough to take a panel wash throughout, but that’s the only shortcoming. It doesn’t qualify as AMS anymore, but again, to be fair, maybe my setting solutions are getting old.

So what do we do when we encounter the point that I call being “down to superglue and hope?” Glue that should grab in seconds doesn’t always, and even for a lifetime modeller there is always an aspect of close-enough-is-good-enough. Is this the pleasure we want from the hobby? Or is it a case of being an artist looking at a finished canvas and being let down by reality when compared to one’s inner vision?

We need to be realistic, of course. Some are more talented than others, that’s the way the world works, and even the most brilliantly skilful will always be harsh critics of their own work. It’s good to bear that in mind when perfectionism bites and we see every little flaw (and are inclined to say they are not so little, while others may have a hard time spotting them.) Understanding that it’s the fun of the journey, not the destination, also helps – that flush of pleasure with each completed stage cannot be undone, even if the final product falls short of the styrene nirvana we hoped for, and, if truth be told, still believe in with an unshakeable faith.

In the end, the answer seems to be the next kit. Can we resist it? We might have been temporarily scared off a particular subject, genre or scale, but we know it won’t be for long, because when we look at the stash it’s not as if we’re looking up the north face of the Eiger, it’s as if we’re looking into a candy store, and we can’t wait to open another box. Many of us resist removing the shrinkwrap from kits so as to preserve the heady feeling of that very act, followed by opening the box and seeing those fresh, welcoming parts, and gladly accepting the artistic and technical challenge of bringing those parts slowly, steadily together, into, if not a genuine work of art, then something not far short of it in the eyes of no few of our peers, friends and families. Yes, that’s the answer I was looking for…

So, as soon as this one is in the display case, which shall I finish next? As ever, I’m spoiled for choice!

Etch – When Necessary!

Sometimes there’s just no option, and a 1:32nd scale aircraft with a perfectly clear canopy is one of those occasions – you just have to bite the bullet and consider etch, no matter how much you hate the stuff.

I set out to build Hasegawa’s 1:32nd scale Fw 190 A-8 in markings for Operation Bodenplatte, and I stalled out for a number of reasons – difficulty with obtaining the paints in the format I wanted, finding display space for so large a model, but really, ultimately, there was only one reason, and that was the fact the kit cockpit came without harness. I needed harness before I could complete the cockpit, before I could close the fuselage, before I could do one more stroke of work, much less finish the project. There it lay in limbo, because the basic etch set I picked up from Eduard (#32-053) was just too intimidating.

Fast forward a couple of years and I spotted 32-600, a pre-painted set which was even self-adhesive. Well, I thought, that might simplify things to the point even a sausage-fingered hack like me might manage to not make a pig’s ear of it, so long as the light is bright enough and the magnifying specs strong enough..

Still, it took a long time to commit to the job, there is always another kit to procrastinate with, and eventually it was a blazing hot day in summer that was too hot to airbrush even at 8am that set me thinking about itty bitty etched parts that didn’t need painting.

I had studied the instructions a number of times, visualised the process, realised there was no way you could pass two thicknesses of etch through the same hole no matter what the instructions said to do, and at last trimmed the first few parts and gave them a go. They worked, more or less, I’m sure any mismatches were my fault, and an experienced etchaholic would have knocked the straps out in no time at a much better standard. The main thing is, they look the part and dress the cockpit with a detail that is otherwise all too obviously missing. Under macro-enlargement the fabric effect printed into the paintjob is nothing short of remarkable and prompts the question as to what eyesight these things are made for? Certainly not mine! (Thanks to my bro in law for the super-closeup images!)

The frightening thing is imagining doing it at a smaller scale. A bit of painted tape is fine for 1:72nd scale, I feel, unless one can miniaturise oneself to both do the work and appreciate it afterwards. Yes, now you mention it, I do still need glasses… My favourite 48th scale? I don’t know… Am I an etch convert now? Well, let’s just say that there are times when it’s the go-to solution!

Recently Completed: Tamiya’s King Tiger (Retool)

From time to time there are kits that you fixate on, or at least keep them tucked away at the back of your mind as one you really, really want to do, and Tamiya’s King Tiger with the Porsche turret, released in 1993 as part of their program of retooling and refining older subjects, was just such a kit for me. I saw the high quality factory job in the commercials of the day and longed to open that box. Unfortunately it was one of those kits which at the time I referred to in an article as “exotic mega-kits at exotic mega-prices.” I had no hope of affording it in those days, and it still sells over the counter in Australia for around the $70 mark. I picked one up on eBay for a lot less several years ago, and held onto it for a long time, savouring the moment I would finally slit the shrinkwrap.

The catalyst was probably buying the old hardback edition of Tony Greenland’s Panzer Modelling Masterclass, a classic of the hobby, and seeing the job he did on this subject. I had the kit, I had a turned barrel for it, I had Tony Greenland’s recommended paints, and I had MiG pigments to substitute for his famous chalk pastel weathering technique, so it was game on.

What can I say that has not already been said? Nothing, I should think, but I can tell you what I feel about the kit. The engineering precision is everything you would expect from Tamiya, the “old master” of armour makers. Not over-thought and painfully finicky, that’s Dragon’s gig; just straightforward building pleasure, and most of the details of the real tank are represented down to a fine level of resolution. Maybe some details are overscale, such as the AA MG mount; the engine deck grills were absent, but Alliance Modelworks’ etched steel set provided a full set of grills that went on without trauma. I wired the headlight with some soft detailing wire, a first for me, and again there were no particular dramas.

Some would say an etched set overall is a necessary upgrade but I have never had either the patience or the “anality” to demand it (or the eyesight, in all probability!) and I was happy with the tools and clamps. Instead of raked putty for the zimmerit, I used Cavalier’s resin set, which was wafer-thin and went on easily, with the exception of the transom piece, which called for the slicing away of most details, a task too radical for me. I pieced it together by removing a few details and adjusting the zimmerit around the rest, flushing it together in multiple tiny pieces and even some raked putty here and there. Same with the gun mantlet, I used Cavalier’s supplied rake tool and created zimmerit in areas indicated as necessary by Tony Greenland’s research but not supplied in the Cavalier set. Cavlier provide a cast resin mantlet to go with the Tamiya gun, but I was using an Eduard turned barrel which was designed to go with the kit mantlet, not Cavalier’s, thus some modifications were needed.

The real thrust of the project was the camouflage scheme. I followed Tony Greenland’s research for a King Tiger in the French campaign of late 1944, possibly surviving as late as the Bulge in December though this is my speculation only. Tiger 334 was finished in the green, brown and yellow stripe scheme found at the time, though without the windblown “leaves” of the “Ambush” scheme. This called for what is probably my best fineline airbrushing to date, using high pressure and low flow to replicate the almost floral writhings of the stripe edges. Then I used the standard approach of fade-and-shade coats to tie everything together, oil pin wash and rust streaking, and pigments to finish off with as dust and dirt. The running gear uses pencil graphite worked extensively into the rims of the resilient steel wheels, and the vinyl tracks are perfectly acceptable behind the skirt armour, as their lack of proper sag is simply not visible.

I was very happy with the result. It was challenging in some ways, a breeze in others, and I was able to get to grips with the painting and weathering without being caught up in too extensive a build job. It looks proud on the shelf, squat, powerful, menacing, just as a King Tiger should.

This is one of those kits deemed “good in its day” by those for whom refinement out of the box is everything, but I’m more than satisfied with the texture and look of the finished article, and have no plans to update in the foreseeable future. I would recommend the basic kit to anyone with a few tanks under their belt, and if building without the extra bells and whistles I’m sure a beginner could return a pleasing result too.

Thankyou, Tamiya, for building pleasure which did not let down the years of anticipation I had for this project!

Masking – A Dying Art?

That may sound like a strange title at first glance: every modeller masks at some point in a project if paint is going to be applied, so how can the art die? The thought crossed my mind that the hobby is so well supplied these days, with every possible labour saving device, substance, gadget and fitting, that many of the arts our forebears took for granted have gone the way of the dodo.

Fifty years ago serious modellers rescribed their kits to get recessed panel lines, because they knew perfectly well that raised lines were an artefact of the tooling process and real aircraft had recesses between their skin panels… Kit makers took another twenty years to catch up with that reality and figure out how to produce kits with engraved detail – some companies have still not quite got the hang of it. Similarly, the flood of etched parts means that fabricating tank engine grilles from wire or vinyl mesh, and making frames from plastic strip, with rod slivers for bolt heads, has been consigned to the realm of scratch building. The craze for aftermarket seat harnesses has eclipsed any attempt to make them for oneself.

It is in this light that it struck me that masking, an integral part of painting, is also a declining art. There are literally thousands of die-cut adhesive mask sets out there, from Eduard and other manufacturers, and I have become very used to using them – where would we be without them for those complex World War II “glass house” canopies? And yet… I applied Eduard’s set for Fujimi’s Stuka and I was not terribly impressed by the fit. It was far better than trying to cut tape and mask all those panes individually, but it was not as accurate as the old way would have been. Eventually I called the job done after fiddling with tape fragments to even up the lines created by the ill-fitting commercial masks, but I’m aware once again that 1:72nd scale is pushing the boundaries of what is both possible, and acceptable to both today’s sharpened sensibilities and heightened expectations.

Is there a place for old fashioned masking in today’s do-it-now mentality? Sometimes there’s no choice, either there’s no set available for your subject matter in the scale you need, or you can’t afford it, or you haven’t got time for it to arrive… That sounds like a self-evident thing and I’m sure we’ve all been in the same situation. I remember doing Hobbycraft’s Avia S-199 and checking to see if I could make Eduard’s set for the Bf 109 K fit – it didn’t really, so I masked the old way, grumbling a bit as I did so. But just today I found myself masking the canopy for a Fujimi Phantom, for which there seems to be no commercial set, and it struck me that far from resenting the necessity, I actually enjoyed the process.

I outlined the areas with fine strips, filled in the large ones with tape and the small or fiddly ones with Humbrol Maskol solution. It was not particularly difficult, if time-consuming, and nothing I’ve not done before. The result was at least as accurate as a commercial set, and probably more so. I do feel it would become tedious to mask every model this way, and I have no plans to stop using die-cut sets, but I guess my point is that the old way is a useful skill that still has a strong role to play.

And, in the end, there is also a certain satisfaction that comes from saying you licked the problem without need of a third party (except the guys who make tape, knives, scissors and so on…), and it encourages the thought that it may be desirable to be less reliant on the aftermarket industry to satisfy our every whim. Just now and then, we should at least try to make the odd detail from scratch: it’s what craftsmen do.

Or used to…